


turnabout

by Splintered_Star



Series: poe and leia [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Grief, Mid-Canon, Missing Scene, Off screen Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 19:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13220001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splintered_Star/pseuds/Splintered_Star
Summary: Poe Dameron comes back from Jakku without his droid or his jacket, blood smeared on his neck that he never had the chance to clean and a strained smile as he joked about billing the Resistance for a trip on a freighter.(About childhood friends, and the people they aren't any more)





	turnabout

**Author's Note:**

> written sometime in 2016, finally getting around to posting it now. i think i was gonna add a bit, but, eh.

Poe Dameron comes back from Jakku without his droid or his jacket, blood smeared on his neck that he never had the chance to clean and a strained smile as he joked about billing the Resistance for a trip on a freighter. 

He makes his report as professionally as ever - which means only somewhat professional, with a smirk he tries not to use around General Organa because he's pretty sure he picked it up from Han. Force knows he spent enough time at their house growing up. 

He says that the information was extracted from him through torture, and then continues on with the story, spending much more time emphasizing Finn's bravery and risks. He does not meet General Organa's eyes. It won't make any difference, he's sure, but it helps him get through his report anyway. He doesn't care if she sees him, but he's not sure he can see her right now.

That night, General Organa calls him to her office. He's not really surprised. 

"General, sir?" He asks, out of formality. She raises an eyebrow at him, smiling faintly at the pretense. 

"Sit, Poe." He does, and she looks him over. He's well used to the touch of the Force from her - it tastes a bit like ozone in the back of his throat, like the smell of rain - but he doesn't feel it now. Not that she needs it, he figures. "Since you were tortured you'll be assigned a therapist, though frankly I don't know when you'll have the opportunity to go." He winces, either at the order of seeing a therapist or at her never-wrong prediction of how busy they'll be in the coming months. You don't need the Force to predict the course of a war, but it damn well helps. 

"I'll get in the rota as soon as I can, sir." He says, because General Organa does not Suggest things, and besides, that's not what they're here to talk about anyway. 

General Organa lets out a breath, her posture shifting, and suddenly she's Auntie Leia again. She stands long enough to pull out a bottle from one of her cabinets - real glass, he thinks, and filled with something amber. Rum, maybe. Probably not Correlian. She pours him a glass, and then one for herself. 

It's against regs, probably, but right now they're in a space between regs. Nobody calls regs on the General, anyway, except maybe herself. So Poe nods, takes the glass, and takes a drink. Then he takes another one. He skipped mess hall, not willing to be checked up on after getting back. He'll reassure everyone later. But he's drinking on an empty stomach, and even though he knows damn well he'll regret it in the morning, he takes another drink anyway. 

"You were tortured. Kylo Ren?" Poe nods, doesn't meet her eyes. "You're very strong. After Vader tried to get into my mind, I had headaches for weeks." Poe hums, rubbing at his temple noncommittally. Leia waits for a moment, and then sighs. "You don't need to spare me, Poe." Poe looks up and Leia looks so somber, so serious, like an officer. "You can talk about what you went through, if you need to." 

Kylo Ren's true identity is only known to a few officers in the Resistance. Ben Organa-Solo officially died in the attack on the temple. Poe is the only one under Lt. General that knows otherwise, and that's only because he was - he thought he was, anyway - Ben's best friend growing up. 

There is no one else they can share this with, now. Han is gone, and Poe's parents died years ago - the memory of Ben Organa-Solo has slowly faded, like an after image. It's safer that way, more secure. There is no one else who can know that Poe was tortured by the man he once called cousin - no one who can sit with Leia Organa and know the fate of her son. 

Poe wants to laugh, he wants to bless her, wants to curse at her - even now, even now, she thinks of her men before herself - even here, even with him, she ignores what it means for herself in order to take care of him. 

Poe snorts, head in his hands. She got him drunk, first, because General Organa is still cleverer than him. 

He /wants/ to spare her, wants to keep her from bearing more of a burden than she already does. When he was little he thought she was invincible, with the whole galaxy on her unbowing shoulders - now that he's not a kid, he can see the cracks and the cost in her. She never acknowledges it. There are maybe a dozen people in the Resistance that even recognize it, and fewer that can understand. 

But she's offering, and maybe she'll let him return the favor one day. Maybe this'll keep him functional through whatever nightmare the galaxy throws up next. Maybe he should trust the damn general's judgement for once. 

"All I could think," Poe says, mumbled into his hands, "was - do you remember that time, just before he went off with Luke? When we borrowed a speeder from the garage and went on a joyride?" They'd been - fuck, nine or ten, Poe can't remember when it happened in relation to their birthdays, might have been between the two. One last hurrah before Ben went away. Ben had broken into the garage - probably with the force, Poe thinks now, and figures that's why no one noticed them leaving. Poe doesn't wait for Leia to nod. "I was looking up at the damn grill of a face and all i could think was, I've seen you smile, I've seen you laugh. There was a goddamned person in there once." 

Poe doesn't look up from his hands. He's not sure he could stand Leia's face right now. He doesn't bother asking what happened to Ben - they've gone down that path before. Poe might be the only person on D'Qar to know about Leia's suspicions, about the meaning of the name Snoke. He's definitely the only one to remember Ben as a child, how damn /skittish/ he was sometimes, how much he hated crowds because he could hear their minds - how much Leia and Luke tried to help him, and how little it worked. 

He thought of that too, strapped on the interrogation table. About what the Force could do to a mind, to a child who didn't know how to fight back because the galaxy was supposed to be /safe/ now. 

"....how do you stand it?" he says, instead. He's overcome with bravery and alcohol and grief. "Feelin' so damn sorry for the kid he used to be while hating the man he became?" 

He peeks through his fingers, and Leia is smiling at him, so soft and so sad and so rueful, and all his bravery evaporates. All that's left over is grief and guilt and the taste of alcohol. "If you ever figure it out," she says, "Let me know." 

He huffs a laugh, closing his eyes. "Same to you, ma'am." 

He hears her take a drink, hears her top his off. He takes a sip without looking. It's sweet, and and familiar, and it tastes like things long gone, like family. 

Poe lifts his glass in a wordless toast, and his lips quirk up when Leia clinks hers against it.


End file.
